A moongate in my wall: собрание стихотворений - [68]

As an infant blind from the beginning,

never having known his mother's face,

yet remembers whispering and singing,

hands caressing tenderly and bringing

gentle warmth and never-ending grace,

so do I, not having ever seen You,

know You, feel Your breath from where I stand,

hear Your song, Your whisper understand,

and against all human earthly reason

recognize the warmth that is Your hand.

13 Mar. 1961

614. Дмитрий Кленовский (1893–1976). Наш мир [275]

Of course, it's fair! Not in the present

the end of which it cannot see

and not in that which it bewails

or does not have the strength to be.

But in the changing succession

of suddenly bedazzled days,

its gift of momentary gladness

the transient kindness of its ways.

So all around us, and forever:

under a dagger's constant aim

people will kiss and gather flowers

and build their houses just the same.

In spite of all the grief of partings,

of all the hands wrung in despair,

of all premeditated falsehood,

it still will be forever fair!

17 July 1965

615. Дмитрий Кленовский (1893–1976). Звезды [276]

Children are taught in textbooks

that stars are so far away —

I somehow never believed them,

those things they used to say.

I used to love as a child

to stay awake in bed:

and stars would ever so lightly

rain tinkling round my head.

From the blackened boughs of chestnuts

I would shake them down to the sand,

and, filling my pockets with them,

could buy the wealth of the land.

Since then I've been mean and stingy,

— oh heart! — but, forsaking youth,

I never forgot, growing older,

my childhood's merry truth.

We live low down on the ground

and the sky is so far, and yet —

I know that the stars are near us

and can be easily met.

15 June 1967

616. Дмитрий Кленовский (1893–1976). «Вот стоишь, такая родная…» [277]

In your plain little coat and kerchief,

so familiar and dear, you stand,

the key to our promised heaven

you hold in your empty hand.

Let's set out once again together!

The hills ever darker grow.

Does it matter that we are tired?

We've so little left to go.

If only we're never parted

in the lonely course of our fate,

if we only have strength together

to reach the Highest Gate!

Once again, let us bless each other

as we used to, and never fear —

they will let us enter together,

that's long been decided, dear.

July 1967

617. Дмитрий Кленовский (1893–1976). «Легкокрылым гением ведомы…» [278]

Guided by some lightly winging spirit

far beyond the sea the birds have flown.

On this dark and bleak November morning,

why do you and I stay home alone?

Maybe we should follow — take a knapsack,

staff and flask, some good and trusted books,

and pursue the swiftly flying swallows

over woods and meadowlands and brooks?

Only those who linger are un able

to partake of joys on Earth arrayed.

Every turnpike, boundary and barrier

we would pass, unseen and unafraid.

Surely then, at break of day tomorrow

you and I would reach the rosy haze

over gleaming rocks and crested breakers,

slender palms, and golden blessed days!

And as surely, to the fullest measure,

we who dared would be repaid indeed

for the grain of utter faith within us,

for that single mustard seed!

[1960s]

618. Дмитрий Кленовский (1893–1976). Царскосельские стихи [279]

When I was a boy I used to be your friend,

beautiful town of parks and lonely statues,

dense lilac groves and empty palaces, —

you hadn't yet been visited by grief.

Your Gumileff was still a carefree youth,

Akhmatova — a schoolgirl and in love,

and Innokenti Annensky had not

died suffocating at your railroad station;

even your Pushkin used to seem to me

not dead, but living, not yet grown up,

but just another of my noisy classmates.

Decades have passed. Impossible to count

your losses. All your palaces now lie

decaying. All your poets have been killed

by silence, bullet, or complete contempt.

Alone the name of Pushkin, as of old,

still shines above you like a glorious promise

— a token of the coming future truth.

[1960s]

619. Дмитрий Кленовский (1893–1976). «Как много есть прекрасного на свете…» [280]

There s such a wealth of beauty in the world:

a maiden’s breast, a flying eagle's wing,

loaf of a maple, sunrise in Rialto,

a lily-of-the-valley in the spring;

a leaping doe; the Milky Way, a sail,

the Volga's great expanse, a child's eyes…

You see yourself: too many things to mention

for you and me to count or to surmise.

And yet is life not easier for knowing

that everywhere around you children roam,

and maples grow, and there are waves, and maidens,

or simply someone's garden and a home?

You say to me: All that is transient, passing!

But you are wrong! Next spring, in that green bower,

another doe will leap again, as lightly,

and underfoot will bloom another flower!

Our world is ill. It whispers invocations

and tries to smother what in life is true.

But nowhere in it stands a ruined building

where grass will not come up anew.

[1960s]

620. Дмитрий Кленовский (1893–1976). «He камешком в мозаиках Равенны…» [281]

No pebble in ravenna's sculptured tomb,

nor crimson paint-dab in the Vatican, —

I merely was a wisp of merry spume

upon the ocean's blue and distant span.

But when a sail came toward me, I would swirl

to meet it; I have played with reefs near land,